Save the Heritage & the Community of Millers Point, Dawes Point & the Rocks, Stop the public housing sell-off in Millers Point and the rest of Australia.

Millers Point, Dawes Point & the Rocks are the birthplace to Australian history & contain the oldest community in Australia and it is being sold off and all of the long term residents and public housing tenants evicted. Please help to preserve Australia's heritage and a precious and unique community.

Sydney's waterfront should not simply be for those who can afford multi-million dollar apartments. Suburbs such as Millers Point are communities made up of residents who were asked prove a commitment to and connection to the area before being provided with housing as part of onerous and dangerous working conditions with the Maritime industries. There had to maintain the housing themselves and look after each other. A community was therefore formed over generations that has made it an ideal place for vulnerable people to be housed - a socially diverse and well functioning community where people know each other, are friendly and actually take practical care of each other, especially those more vulnerable. Forced removal will destroy this community and is causing great distress to the current residents. It is also removing residents from a web of freely given relationships and forcing them further onto welfare.

The need to save Millers Point and it's residents is strengthened by the contribution of the local community to preserving Australia's heritage, which is firmly committed to the preservation of the suburb’s unique character and is the reason that the area is heritage listed and the famous Rocks area is still preserved.

The area is held in deep affection by the residents, many of whom have family connections that can be traced through proceeding generations of the Millers Point population, and/or have links to maritime industries. The historic, social and physical fabric of Millers Point cannot therefore be considered as separate components, but rather as interwoven traits making up the precinct so that an unusually high and rare degree of social significance can be ascribed to this area.

It is a living community with clearly discernible links to the maritime industries that formed the village's core from the early part of the nineteenth century, and one that has long-term memories of the precinct's fabric and relevance. The rushed gentrification of an area comes at the cost of removing families from homes and individuals from areas which they were born into and their families have lived for generations m

Residents on welfare and pensioners are as entitled to inner city housing as any other citizen. Most of the housing is actually low maintenance and some requires no maintenance. Most is ideal for social housing and not suitable for the open market. Please reconsider an unnecessary decision to gentrify an area already inhabited by an established community. Our communities are invaluable no matter where they are located. And we should fight to preserve them. Not destroy them for yet another soulless, generic development. Millers Point is irreplaceable.

Please sign this petition as well as the following ones focused on individuals - you are helping to challenge inaccurate perceptions about residents as well as adding your signature towards positive change: